ATF Death Watch 155: Impeach Obama?

Fast and Furious is Barack Obama’s Watergate. The President’s decision to evoke Executive Privilege is an exact echo of Richard Nixon’s strategy to protect the Watergate Tapes—recordings that established the White House coverup of an intelligence-gathering burglary at the Watergate building. Only this time the President lied and people died. Specifically, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata and an unspecified number of Mexican nationals—all murdered by drug thugs wielding weapons enabled by the ATF’s Fast and Furious program. A program that was, in all likelihood, authorized by the President of the United States. As Andrew McCarthy kinda sorta maybe concludes over at nationalreview.com . . .

If, prior to Agent Terry’s murder, plans were already being made for Attorney General Holder to appear at the anticipated press conference to announce arrests, it is inconceivable that discussions about the case were not ongoing between the U.S. attorney’s office and Main Justice — which, of course, would already have been quite familiar with the case because of the OCDETF [Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force] designation and the wiretaps.

OCDETF cases get the attention of the Justice Department’s top hierarchy. What gets that level of attention gets the attorney general’s attention. And what gets the attorney general’s attention very often gets the president’s attention.

That would be the president who just invoked executive privilege.

That’s supposition—completely credible common sense supposition—but not a smoking gun. The Justice Department wiretap authorizations related to Fast and Furious, leaked to Representative Issa’s House Oversight Committee, signed by top officials at the Justice Department, could well be the damning documents that connect Attorney General Eric Holder to Fast and Furious. We haven’t seen them but McCarthy reckons . . .

There is little doubt that the wiretap applications would show that senior DOJ officials were aware of the gunwalking tactic long before Agent Terry was gunned down on December 14, 2010. But that’s not the half of it. Bet your bottom dollar that gunwalking was discussed in the consideration of whether to make Fast and Furious an OCDETF case in the first place. OCDETF investigations, moreover, are carefully monitored by the Justice Department throughout, to ensure that the extraordinary flow of funding continues to be worthwhile. I’m wagering that senior DOJ officials — which is to say, Obama-administration political appointees — knew about the gunwalking for close to a year before Agent Terry’s death.

Well that would be damning. Especially if that chain of information extended into the Attorney General’s office and, from there, into the office of the President of the United States.

Lest we forget, President Obama told Univision TV on March 31, 2011 that he didn’t authorize Fast and Furious. He also stated that Eric Holder didn’t authorize Fast and Furious. Click here for the CIC’s official denial (still frame above, embed code dis-enabled by CBS News).

So let’s say Eric Holder authorized or at least knew about Fast and Furious before Agent Terry’s murder. That would mean Holder lied to Obama about his involvement. The President, who appointed him, believed him. (D’oh!) Alternatively, the President lied for Holder. Alternatively or additionally, the President lied about his own knowledge of F&F, up to and/or including authorizing the program.

Best case scenario: the President should have known about Fast and Furious. And then, when he found out, done something about it. The best Obama and Holder can do on this score is to claim that they stopped the program when they heard about it (although Holder lied to Congress about when that moment arrived and can’t recall when the White House got a clue). Besides, Bush did it. Well, not exactly the same thing, but . . . pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

[Remember: not one Obama administration official has been fired for their participation in Operation Fast and Furious. Or Operation Castaway (gun store guns from Palm Beach to Honduras). Or “grenadewalker” (releasing an IED maker back into the wild). Etc.]

And then there’s all the misegosafter Terry was killed. We know for a fact that the Department of Justice lied to Congress when Representative Issa and Senator Grassley began their investigations into Fast and Furious’s gunwalking—and let that “no way nuh-uh never happened” assertion remain in play for ten months, until their coverup became unsustainable.

Just like Watergate, the coverup rather than the crime may be the President’s undoing. Later this week, the United States Congress will hold Eric Holder in Contempt for his refusal to hand over documents relating to Fast and Furious. The President’s attempt to shelter these documents under Executive Privilege clearly indicates a White House connection to Fast and Furious—and Mr. Obama’s desperate need to hide the truth from the American public.

No surprise there. But this will not stand. As Richard Nixon learned, even the President of the United States is not above the law. An epic struggle has begun, one that started in a remote Arizona desert when a Mexican rip crew responded to beanbag rounds fired by CPB Agents. Using ATF-enabled firearms, the Mexicans killed a young Marine defending our borders. Thomas Jefferson said“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.” Agent Brian Terry was one of those patriots. While I wish Mr. Obama a long healthy life, let’s see what happens to the tyrant.

I don’t really understand why Obama would even try. If he was involved or informed I’d think his best political play would be to throw Holder under the bus. Then he can claim a victory for government transparency, which was one of his bedrock principles when he campaigned. Now, even if he’s not involved or informed, he has provided a very negative perception of his involvement.

Chewie, it’s quite simple, as one of the commenters under the YouTube video explained:

Obama cannot throw Holder under the bus- because Holder protects Obama by NOT prosecuting his FORGED birth certificate or multiple SSN’s he used in real estate scams-

Note: I am not and never was a “birther” and this is the first time I’ve heard about the multiple SSNs. I don’t lend YouTube comments enough credence to bother to try to find out more. I copied the comment here purely for comedic effect.

I’m just saying I think he has a better chance of getting out of this by throwing him under the bus, as opposed to trying to hide it all. The best we can hope for is that Issa sees this through. I’m glad he told holder to take his offer (of agree not to hold me in contempt and maybe I’ll give you a few irrelevant documents) and shove it.

Congress didn’t impeach Bush for all the crimes committed by members of his government and their not going to impeach Obama either. Holder on the other hand will be cut loose once Obama wins reelection and given a presidential pardon at some point in the future. That’s how shit works in Washington for both parties.

President Obama has already committed several impeachable offenses. Congress is too afraid of the racist label to have the balls to impeach President Obama. Of course, those in power tend to be more interested in power and the gravy train that goes with power, so, perhaps our Congressional leaders aren’t cowards, rather, they’re just venal.

The citations in your article you base your assertions on are full of assumptions and slim on facts. Calling for impeachment at this point is political grandstanding. Calling for the continuation of a thorough investigation and pushing for all information to be uncovered is the sensible approach. After that has been pursued to its conclusion, based on the findings we can talk about impeachments again.
You’ll also want to look up the definition of tyrant. It doesn’t really fit when talking about a democratically elected president of a constitutional republic with checks and balances, there would be no investigation if we’d be ruled by a tyrant.

Very aggressive article RF. I like it a lot. And to Curzen, you can play semantics all you want. There are many people in less privileged parts of the world that would disagree with you about who is a tyrant. And you don’t have to go to the middle east to find them. Just look south a bit.

That’d be who, Chavez? There are no checks and balances anymore in that country my friend. If you thought of someone else, feel free to elaborate. I’m also curious about your thoughts as to what makes Obama a tyrant, especially measured against your mysterious South American tyrant.

Not to put words in anyone’s mouth, but I believe KWAL may have been referring to Mexico. Where the people have a constitutional RKBA, but have had all of their guns taken away and live in fear of drug lords and corrupt politicians and police. (One could note some interesting parallels with Chicago there, actually.) If you are merely an incompetent – or corrupt – politician who oversees the near complete dissolution of civil society into a narcotrafficante run
police (ha! irony) state – are you a tyrant or… perhaps there’s a better epithet?

(You could also make the case ruling a group of illegal aliens aren’t illegal anymore – not by rule of law but executive fiat – was an act of someone with a tyrannical disposition. But that’s a different argument, I guess.)

I’ll possibly be accused of arguing semantics again, but words do have specific meanings and just throwing them out there because they sound good doesn’t make their use correct.

I don’t see how the Mexican predicament (which they could change at the polls) translates to the current US situation. Any grievance with the administration and laws, regulations and executive orders passed can be challenged in the courts (which is currently happening with the healthcare law as an example). As far as the latest executive order goes, I really don’t see how that one oppresses the American people in a tyrannical way. If passing controversial laws that wind up in front of the supreme court and issuing executive orders make a tyrant the US would have been a tyranny for a long, long time already. You’d note that no one in their right mind has so far called the US a tyranny (except maybe Ahmadinejad).

I think of it more as a conspiracy to subvert the Constitution. They let the guns walk for antigun political reasons. I truely believe this. Please let your Representative and Senators know how you feel.

Impeachment proceedings would only detract from electing his replacement. There’s not enough time to impeach him, and if they tried, they will likely fail because the Senate would never convict him. So then he would be riding high from a victory and he’ll get re-elected.

The normal election process is the way to remove him now. It’s only a few months away.

He’s still on the ballot. If he survives impeachment, or is impeached and not convicted, or even if he is convicted, he’s still on the ballot. If he’s going to get re-elected, he will win whether he is impeached or not.

It’s sad to say but in 6 months this case won’t matter. It will either get washed out if BHO isn’t elected and if he is re-elected Congress will move on to something else. I am more than ready for this election cycle to be over.

I have no faith in the gov’t to accomplish anything other than gain more power. Neither political party wants the truth. All of them just spin information in a direction that best plays to their wants. The facts behind F&F will never come out, no one will be held accountable, and nothing will change.

Given the morass that is inter-agency business-as-usual, I’m sure Obama had no idea what lethal boneheadedness ATF was up to. But when he found out, that should be worth getting medieval on.

My still-current beef is how LITTLE press this is getting (if you’re comparing it to Watergate). I first heard about it here (thank you, Robert!). This needs to get louder in the headlines. As it is, a lot of culpable monsters (let’s start with the AZ ATF Field Office) are very likely going to skate on this. If it gets administration-ending embarrassing, then maybe at least a few deserving players will get sacrificed, but it ain’t there yet.

I’m a little concerned the House vote on contempt is happening later this week, at the same time as SCOTUS releases their healthcare ruling. If the contempt vote happens just before or at the same time I can imagine how the media will portray it:

(lead story) Today the Republicans continued their WITCH HUNT! against Obama – and as everyone knows Obama weighs more than a duck so he can’t be a witch and therefore the Republican argument is invalid!
(40 more minutes of ranting about this)
(little snippet at the end after the water-skiing squirrel)And in other news the Supreme Court didn’t give Obamacare nearly as much support as they should have, but Obama says he’ll fix it next term so that’s OK then.

And that’s all the news you’re fit to hear!
(signoff music)
(fade to black)

I find this really funny on a 2a-friendly web site. So “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” only applies to “other” guns, not these, right?
I can understand blaming F&F for Terry’s death IF he was part of the botched sting and died during the operation… otherwise the government is about as guilty about what happened with these guns as they are about what happened to the ones sold to the mexican army that made it to the drug cartels (I am not saying not guilty).

And if 2000 guns empowered the cartels to fill the streets with blood and kill our border agents, maybe gun control is good, as 2000 guns can be sold using legal loopholes from US… I always thought that whatever guns could trickle from the border states to Mexico would be just a drop of water in the ocean; if 2000 is enough to empower the cartels – that is 500 guns per state per year… 40 guns a month from each state – NOT that much…
Oh, and one last thing – I like my friends smart and my enemies stupid – why would you want to replace an AG who can’t get a sting right with another one when you didn’t like the sting to begin with???

Terry’s death was a tragedy. But to the point it isn’t the death that is the issue. It is what brought all this to light but not the crux of the issue.
The issue is our tax dollars went to buy guns, which were then allowed to walk across the boarder with no controls as to where they went or why.

Anyone could tell you this is not a sting operation, despite what everyone seems to call it.
Here is what I know based on what information is available.

The Mexican government was never obligated or agreed to turn over or monitor these weapons.
They were never in agreement to or obligated to turn over the criminals who used these weapons.
There were no tracking devices on these weapons.
There was no attempts made to arrest the straw purchasers immediately following the purchase, but prior to them carrying the guns over the boarder.
Our tax dollars went towards this, which eventually led to Terry’s death.
* Might it have happened anyway, possibly, but the point is it was our guns given to them by our government that did.

So tell me how is this a sting operation? It is a funding operation, and that is the issue along with the complete and total idiocy for the idea behind it.

So it’s said, I don’t support Obama and want him out. My guess however is that Obama if anything, approved what his advisors and team said they felt was the right course of action…sure, his administration may have authorized it but I wouldn’t say he should be impeached over it. A bad plan? Yes, it sure was…and now his administration is covering up. Impeachment over this though? Come on. This article reeks of anger around a lot of issues of this presidency, all funneled into a single “biased-silver-bullet”. I’m no fan of Obama but to have folks here yelling for impeachment over this after what George W and his cronies did to the US/World? Really? What Obama has done to “ruin this country” is so absolutely PALE IN COMPARISON to our last president. It still makes me sick to think about it. “…even the President of the United States is not above the law.” Hmmmmmm. Flame on.

I agree with you as well…I just wonder where some of these same “voices” were when Bush was pillaging the country and destroying our liberties. Seems like we’re all screwed on certain issues no matter what party is in power…

Actually, Obama’s record on civil liberties is much worse than Bush, and I’m saying this as probably the most liberal person who ever comments on this site. If Bush were running against Obama, I’d have to vote for Bush on civil liberties grounds alone.

Obama’s taken every civil liberties abuse that Bush ever even contemplated and pushed it a thousand times further. Just to take the most egregious example, the office of the President now has the power of arbitrary life and death over American citizens. Like a king or emperor, he can decide which of us will live or die based on his whim. That’s something so incredibly radical and contrary to the principles of the Constitution it’s amazing to me that it happened. What’s even more amazing is that just because he attached the terrorism tag to it, almost everybody is fine with it.

Bush was no saint, but compared to Obama, he was a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

I wouldn’t say impeach him. Find out the truth, I could care less what side of the isle it hits.
As far as Obama, he has taken the constitution, and the bill of rights, crumpled them up, threw it on the floor and pissed all over them. His use of executive orders, and executive privilege while not totally unheard of has far reaching complications. Previous administrations which used these powers were on things that didn’t exactly have as much ripple affect. I don’t think previous use of power went against our laws which were currently in place, or if they were it was for small portions, not throwing the whole thing out.
All this seems to be right at the end of his term as well which could be a ploy to gain additional votes.

I don’t get the Obama hatred by gun owners. I’m a member of the NRA and life member of the North American Hunting Club, own several rifles and have always had guns.

The first Obama rumor was he was going to bar code brass cartridges, then put a $0.05 tax on any cartridge and shotgun shell. Never happened, but the rumor worked great for ammunition makers.

Now, the fast and furious debacle is that Obama is sending guns to Mexico to rile up folks here in the states so he can attack the 2nd amendment and take our guns away. That seems to be a stretch, for me anyway.

Obama has been the toughest president EVER on stopping and deporting illegals on the southern border. Created a health care system for millions of fellow Americans, has tried to pass jobs bills to rebuild our roads and bridges etc etc etc.

I don’t agree with everything hes done, but i’m not voting for a guy who’s claim to fame is firing American workers and sending jobs to China.

Blake, I’m not sure if you are referring to me or someone else, but this is basic English, that I understand.
(truth)
Noun:
The quality or state of being true: “the truth of her accusation”. That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality: “tell me the truth”.

couldn’t agree more. the way that the dogmatic partisan divide seems to have seeped in throughout society is absurd. When I as the most recent example see that the contempt vote has so far been split exactly along party lines among the involved politicians I feel bile rising. When I then see how the voters enable those d$&(43bags and fully sign on to “my party good, the other one all bad” I just want to throw my hands in the air and walk away in disgust. You just can’t tell me that you totally disagree with everything the “other party” does 100% of the time.

So impeach Obama because 1 agent was killed. How about Bush getting over 4,000 young people killed in the invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan? No WMDs, just a dictator that was no threat to us. I guess that doesn’t count……ROLLEYES.

Truthy, I agree with you on the Iraq craziness, and Obama got us out of there. But, I think Afghanistan was richeous and Obama took out that asshole Bin Laden even though he was hiding in Pakistan. He also ok’d the Seals to kill those four pirates that took over an American vessel and were holding the Captain hostage.

Bush couldn’t get it done now could he….in fact he wasn’t even looking for him and he admitted it! Bush took us into Iraq over a vendetta against his Dad instead of hunting down the SOB that actually attacked this country. So don’t give me that crap that anyone could have done it, because Bush didn’t.

Actually it was the great military personal that made decisions, tactical planning, timing, and did the ground work. All he had to do was nod his head. There wasn’t any monumental decisions to be made. I would be surprised if he even had much planning or operational knowledge or anything.
Roosevelt on the other hand had his hands in almost every aspect of the D Day invasion, and followup operations.

In the modern age you cannot impeach and convict a Democratic President. Unlike Republicans during Nixon administration, Democrats in the Senate will close ranks behind Obama. Remember, like all Socialist/Fascist political organizations the Democratic Party is little more than a criminal organization.

In order to be successful you would need to have the press on your side. As we now know from the Washington Post’s David Maraniss’s debunking of the President’s biography that the press aided and abetted the distribution of his falsified biography. The MSM will back up Obama 110%. We have an election coming up in November and hopefully this will solve the problem politically instead of judicially. Obama’s manufactured persona should be the issue of the campaign but collectively the American people are no longer capable of making moral judgments.

Any thought of impeaching Obama is a fantasy, and not a helpful one at that. Officials can be impeached for crimes, not because you don’t like them or their policies. I think the Barry O is an awful President. There’s an answer for that — vote him out in November. That’s what I hope to do.

As for invoking “executive privilege,” if that was an impeachable offense, George Washington would have been impeached. These voodoo theories some of you guys are coming up with to justify impeachment are just insane.

Ralph the difference between you and I is that you don’t seem to like Obama for one reason or another and that’s ok with me. I didn’t like Bush because he got a lot of people killed and a lot of those people were Americans and he was cavalier about it.

Putting Bush aside whether you like Obama or not, I do not think he has harmed the country. You could say he is spending to much money, but it’s money spent on Americans. The difference I see between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans don’t want there tax dollars spent in this country on Americans. Ask someone working for GM if Obama spent to much bailing them out. Mitt Romney said he would have let GM fail creating an enormousness suction of money out of the economy. But by god we wouldn’t be as far in debt…or would it be worse?

You should read David Maraniss’s new book on Obama. (Maraniss is a Democrat who still supports Obama). He finally did due dilligence on Obama’s biography. He found out that the President’s biography is fictitious. he lied about everything in his life. Obama is nothing more than a con man who has pulled the biggest scam in history. He has successfully diverted nearly trilion dollars to his cronies. Obama is nothing than a Chicago back bench ward healer who won the big prize in the lottery. As someone who could have chosen to go to law school and join the machine I assure if Obama were to read your defense he would laugh at you.

“Obama is nothing more than a con man who has pulled the biggest scam in history. ” LMAO, excuse me? The biggest cons in US history were pulled off by the GW Bush presidency…lest you forget. Wow. Every day I realize more and more how incredibly split (and ridiculously complex/closed) the human consciousness can be. Geebus H Christy.

Back in 1988 Joe Biden withdrew from the Presidential race because he plagerized a speech. In 1964 Gary Hart got run out the Presidential race in part because he was really Gart Heartpence. In 2008 we had a candidate sold to the American public on the basis “memoir/autobiography, “Dreams from My Father” that turns out to be fiction and we elect him President. I give you the decline of the American electorate.

This reminds of a conversation I had in 2004 with a neighbor who does IT for a leftwing group. I told him that the MSM could tell you that they lied yesterday, they lie today and will lie to you tomorrow and their readers will still believe what the write. Now Maraniss has validated that hypothesis. The MSM lied to you about Obama in 2008 and they are lying to you today and they will lie to you tomorrow and you will still believe them. You are an archtype (know what that is?) that was commonly found in Berlin, Rome or Moscow in the 1930s.

you don’t seem to like Obama for one reason or another and that’s ok with me

@Mike, I actually like Obama. If I had a choice of having a beer with Barry or Mitt, I’d pick Barry every time. I just think Obama is a bad President who is about to get much worse, if given a chance. I have a tendency to judge people by the company they keep. Pelosi, Feinstein, Durban, Lautenberg, Schumer and the rest of those pukes simply turn my stomach. Sorry, but between his policies and his friends, Barry has to go.

Will Romney be better? I don’t know, but something needs to change. I’m willing to take a chance.

Actually if we can get constitutional conservatives into office like Ted Cruz, TX , ex military like Kelly in AZ, we might stand a chance. It is similar to Clinton. You may not like him as a person but he did manage to work with the GOP in congress and get things done. That says something.
Obama seems like a nice guy and likable but his policies and vision of this country and where he wants it to be will bankrupt us. Regardless of how nice entitlement programs are, call it socialism, it can’t work here.
I lived in Israel it is a socialist government. They have a 45% flat tax, and it works. You can’t do that in a free market capitalistic society, you will bankrupt it. Look at CA, it is where the US will be in another few years if we don’t change it.
We bailed out the auto industry and they went into bankruptcy anyways, and didn’t go through the regular process. It helped the unions because they didn’t renegotiate the contracts which would have been done in a normal bankruptcy. They also killed non union employees pensions.
We have to much regulation, a huge leviathan of a government, and government spending which defies logic. We need to fundamentally change how the government buys things and budgets themselves. We need to cut spending big time, fix social security and medicare, and for lords sake secure our boarders. Fix immigration reform.
Get the EPA drones out of the sky, and get out of our lives.
Under Obama it will be the opposite.
That is one hell of a honey do list isn’t it…..

I bet I’d have a great time over beers with Bush or at a game with Obama. That being said, they both have made arbitrary decisions that left people (Americans and foreigners) dead, displaced, maimed, and crippled. No one forced the job on them. They wanted it and, therefore, should be held to account. Sometimes I wish Hell really existed…

The right can call Obama what ever they want, call him a fraud, he’s a Muslim, Chicago gangster, whatever. There has been no attacks on the country, he has tried to pass jobs bills, saved GM, and the country is crawling out of a big hole ever so slowly but steadily. He still gets my vote, until someone can change my mind with something that makes sense.

I fully expect the contempt charge to go forth on Holder tomorrow. Not sure if that means he goes to the slammer until he arranges for documents to head over to the hill, but it should. If he is held in contempt and Obama does something to delay yet again it looks really bad for him and his party, like pulling favors to keep someone out of trouble.
Also his use of the executive privilege raises a lot of questions. Usually it is done to protect security related matters, like if there were undercover CIA in Mexico or something. I is usually done because the administration has intimate knowledge about the documents in question. In this case he said he didn’t know a thing, and even Holder denied knowledge. Of course if those documents show that in fact they knew then they lied to congress. Last I checked the was a felony or something..

“does that mean that Presidents Clinton and Bush were felons 14 times over”
——
Probably not; something on the order of 3 or 4 each would likely be more accurate. And if providing arms to foreign non-governmental entities in direct violation of U.S. law sounds like a barbecue to you, well brother, how ’bout them ribs back during the Reagan administration?

Sanchanim
“Also his use of the executive privilege raises a lot of questions. Usually it is done to protect security related matters, like if there were undercover CIA in Mexico or something.”

That’s what I heard from a radio reporter today. The tapes and other docs would disclose undercover operators and other projects going on. Now that’s easy to say and who knows if that’s true, but either way do you want to force the issue for 1 dead agent to jeopardize other agents.

Or is it a fishing expedition by Republicans to get at Obama and get him out of the White House ASAP and sometimes it’s worth a couple dead bodies to get the end result.

I hate to think that’s the case, because it’s not only heartbreaking but also sickening

“A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.”

Obama Care is passed through the supreme court. A dark day in America to think those people will now have health care. What a hideous thought, poor Americans, middle class and everyone will be able to get health care. I hate the thought of my tax dollars going to a fellow American when those dollars could be spent in a foreign country. Heck we could give the money or more money to Japan, or Mexico, or Iraq or anywhere but here in America. Stand up and fight this horrible decision to give health care to Americans….It’s just wrong! lol